My second fleet operation within 0.0

I have joined SCE a few weeks ago and at the moment I am doing nothing else than improving my combat pilot abilities. And this morning it was time again to make another step further in this direction: A fleet commander from our mother corporation SCI organized once again a training cruiser OP for us combat pilot rookies.

The morning started better, than the night before ended

While Charlotte is down in Amarr to handle our trading business and to learn how to become a capital ship pilot, I try to get a better combat pilot down here in Aridia – the Low-Sec region where we recently secured the Ombil constellation for us SCE pilots.

Why I went down here far away from my lovely wife? I wanna develop new trade routes for our small business – I wanna learn how to defend Charlotte and me against pirates … that and a lot of other issues brought us a few months ago to the decision, that we have to live for awhile apart from each other and that I join SCE to go down to Low-Sec. But the story of my wife Charlotte and me will be told another day.

Today I waked up in my small dirty room in Fihrneh’s “Royal Amarr Institute” station, looked out the window in the direction of the Kemih stargate and the first thing, which came back into my mind was: “Damn idiot – you lost a Myrmidon, a Celestis and implants worth 50m ISK seven hours ago, due to not properly listening on Battle-Comms” … we have been roaming around in a small gang yesterday to kill two Command Ships within our systems. I died in my Celestis, after we had a little “coordination problem” at a jump gate and after I flew back to the station, to get my Myrmidon out to support my stayed behind mates, I missed on Battle-Comms that they already died as well pretty quickly and so I warped directly into two Command Ships … totally alone – shit happens – that was the first time I was happy that the clone technology has arisen.

Maybe that was one of the reasons why I had this massive headache in the early morning ours – being without implants feels kind a strange – everything feels so slowly and foggy … I got me a coffee, jumped into my shuttle and went out to get some new Dampener Scrips for the todays OP from a station just 3 jumps away. The flight was pretty calm – nothing on scan and no trace of any recent engagements.

A look back

While I was flying back, I remind myself what I have learned in the last cruiser op. It was my first training op within SCE ever and I was pretty excited in the moment I noticed that we will fly into 0.0 – there we jumped into a gate camp to engage a mid-sized gang of T2 ships and of course we knew, that we will all get blown up – but what I haven’t knew before is that I wouldn’t be part of the fight.

First I couldn’t lock my targets, because I haven’t uncloaked after jumping. Than I had a misconfiguration of my overview settings and couldn’t find any of the called targets quick enough to lock them anyway. And a few seconds later my coffee fall over my control unit and in all that hecticness I have forgotten to activate my Damge Control Modul – what a painful debut in being a combat pilot. Conclusion: never fly without a drink holder – but what do you wanna expect from a French spaceship?

I don’t need to tell you, that I was faster in structure than I could clean up my ships cockpit from the coffee and that my way home alone in a pod was an adventure itself. Man I was lucky that could escape this bubble with my pod and saved my implants.

Another OP, another chance

So that wouldn’t happen again. I made me a few penciled reminders on paper and placed them in my cockpit next to my overview screen. One hour later we have been a 20+ fleet ready to die for another lesson in warfare. The fleet commander broadcast the final destination and we aligned for the first gate. A few jumps later our scout detected a Drake in one of the first 0.0 systems we reached.

The scout tackled the Drake and prompt we received the order to warp directly to our mate to engage the Drake. And yeaha – I was one of the first who arrived there, could lock him, activate my RSD’s, launch my drones and approached him to get in NOS range. That was fun – I have played a helpful role and have dealt damage to him. I was proud and immediately send Charlotte a short notice to Amarr, while the rest of the fleet was talking about how to proceed now. “Darling – I am killer”

But that was not enough – we continued our 0.0 T1 cruiser adventure and on our way we have found another victim: a Vagabond at a stargate – but he was out of targeting range when we jumped into the system (119km for me) and therefore the FC send out two interceptors to tackle him. And then I made the only mistake of the day. I approached him instead of waiting that he gets in warp range. So I followed him very slowly and after a few seconds I saw on my right hand side everybody warping directly to him.

So that fight I missed – but due to missing webs on him he could escape anyway and nothing really important happened. After he escaped our FC decided to give out the order, that everybody warps to a nearby station within optimal range. That means 30kms for me – then I have the RSDs in optimal range, my drones can attack and I am in a more or less safe position to the battlefield and have a few seconds to decide what to do next.

First time engaging a carrier

To my surprise what we have found there hasn’t been only battleships and T2 cruiser – but there also has been a carrier. Whow – that was the first time I engage one and after a few seconds I’ve heard the order on Battle-Comms “Dampeners on Thanatos – Dampeners on Thanatos” – ah – that order was for me. I locked the Thanatos, orbited him in 30km and put my four RSD’s loaded with script on him. I waited a few seconds, if anything unexpected will happen and then released my drones to attack the called primaries.

That was really fun for me. I could make use of my special abilities (I trained signal suppression to be an effective Celestis pilot before) and could even engage other targets. But two or three minutes later it was clear, that we wouldn’t win any fight here and that a few fighters from the carrier will be our only victims. Every of the hostile ship was in docking range of the station and suddenly the numbers in local increased dramatically and a lot of ships undocked from that station.

We tried to get at least one ship down and had him close before structure but then one T1 cruiser of us after another was popped out and I guess I was in my pod within two seconds after the first volley hit me. To protect myself I warped to a planet in my pod and then I suddenly remembered was has happend the night before … so I turned around, warp to the station and waited that someone blow me up.

Everything went pretty quickly and I suddenly waked up in Fihrneh – I don’t needed to protect anything – I have lost my implants a few hours before. Damn what a headache these cloning causes to me … I will get me another coffee …

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2 Responses to “My second fleet operation within 0.0”

Hey Barachan! Well your blog seems pretty interesting! One thing though is that your a pilot in a pod right? Not like the old days where you sat in an actual cockpit. If you are in a cockpit and not in a pod, i suggest you upgrade🙂 PS move to the scope station, they have much better rooms, cleaner too.